Windows Media Player encoding quality, question

[cordura21]

hey guys.

I read an article at artistpro by David Miles Huber, and it says:

Encoding Windows Media Player format (.WMA) at 64 kps, 44kHz, 16-bit Stereo - To me, Windows Media (WMA format) sounds about as good as MP3 at 128 kps. This is amazing, given the fact that the file's encoded at 64 kps! This means that much more sound can be squeezed into the same memory space, which (for those who use portable media players) is a very important issue

What do you think? I don't have a WMA encoder, but if it's half the size then it's great. What's your experience with that format?
Is it readable by the major player, like Quicktime, Real, etc...?

Cheers, Andrés